PhilPaine.com

I will make my posi­tion plain. I am a Cana­di­an, not an Amer­i­can, but like all Cana­di­ans I must pay close atten­tion to the pol­i­tics of the coun­try that bor­ders mine for 8,891 kilo­me­tres (5,525 miles), has ten times our pop­u­la­tion, with which we have (by far) the largest-scale trad­ing rela­tion­ship in the world, and with which we share a con­sid­er­able degree of our cul­ture. Our economies are so inter­twined that every polit­i­cal deci­sion that occurs in the U.S. imme­di­ate­ly and some­times pro­found­ly influ­ences our life. I have at times lived in the U.S., and have many friends there, as do most Cana­di­ans. But we are not Amer­i­cans, and some­times all has not been well between us. When the Unit­ed States entered its dis­as­trous war in Viet­nam, and we were pres­sured to join in with that deba­cle, a major­i­ty of Cana­di­ans were opposed to it, and we stayed out of it. When, sub­se­quent­ly, many young Amer­i­cans resist­ed the slav­ery of con­scrip­tion, and the cor­rup­tion of the war, we wel­comed them as hon­ourable refugees, just as we had wel­comed refugees from slav­ery in the 19th cen­tu­ry. They were the true Amer­i­can patri­ots, and we respect­ed them.

One of those great moral divi­sions is upon us. The Unit­ed States has accom­plished many great and noble things, but in recent times, it has reached its low­est moral ebb in a hun­dred years. The upcom­ing elec­tion in the Unit­ed States is cru­cial to both our coun­tries. If the Repub­li­can Par­ty wins, then the U.S. is washed up as a coun­try, every decent prin­ci­ple it has fought for will be defeat­ed, degrad­ed and destroyed. This is a pro­found threat to my coun­try, which I love.

There have been two great men­aces to human dig­ni­ty and free­dom in the last cen­tu­ry. One was the con­stel­la­tion of total­i­tar­i­an move­ments that dom­i­nat­ed the first half of the cen­tu­ry, which includ­ed Com­mu­nism, Nazism, Fas­cism, and their var­i­ous mim­ic and out­lier move­ments. The oth­er is its mod­ern suc­ces­sor, the Con­ser­v­a­tive Move­ment that emerged in the Unit­ed States in the last gen­er­a­tion and has slow­ly tak­en over its pub­lic life, and spread around the world, as Com­mu­nism did, through the influ­ence of cor­rupt intel­lec­tu­als, delud­ed suck­ers and fel­low-trav­ellers. But there is no sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence between the two move­ments. The sec­ond is essen­tial­ly just a reboot and re-brand­ing of the first. In both cas­es, the aim is the same: the destruc­tion of free and demo­c­ra­t­ic soci­eties and the erect­ing of mil­i­taris­tic soci­eties ruled by a wealthy, all-pow­er­ful aris­toc­ra­cy, in which most human beings will be dis­pos­able ser­vants, peas­ants and slaves. In both cas­es, human rights and lib­er­ty are to be sac­ri­ficed in the name of crack­pot eco­nom­ic the­o­ries. In both cas­es, the lead­ers of the move­ment mobi­lize racism, vio­lence, super­sti­tion and every base human pas­sion among the gullible to achieve their aims. The aims are the same, the meth­ods are the same, and the under­ly­ing phi­los­o­phy is the same. Only the slo­gans and catch-phras­es dif­fer. Don­ald Trump and Ted Cruz are mere­ly the tip of the ice­berg of evil. There is worse to come.

Any Amer­i­can who votes for the Repub­li­can Par­ty in the upcom­ing fed­er­al elec­tion is, as far as I am con­cerned, a trai­tor to their own coun­try, and a men­ace to mine. I will con­sid­er such a per­son to be beyond the pale of civ­i­liza­tion, a per­son to be shunned. Such a per­son will nev­er be allowed to set foot in my home, I will nev­er share food with them, and nev­er, as much as pos­si­ble, ever speak to them. This deci­sion is final. It will nev­er change. Ever.

I have spent the entire­ty of my life study­ing the abom­i­na­tions of aris­toc­ra­cy and slav­ery, and sup­port­ing and pro­mot­ing democ­ra­cy and free­dom. This is a crit­i­cal moment, and I wish to leave no doubt in any­one’s mind where I stand.